Someone on imdb asked how come more people didn't try the chamber to turn into Jon. A user offered this answer that I found fascinating and thought-provoking: Because their consciousness wasn't powerful enough to re-assemble themselves in the other dimensional plane.

The intrinsic field chamber is a misnomer to Jon's powers - the intrinsic field was just the motivator to his transformation - it was not the causal force.

Had Jon died of old age instead of getting vaporized he'd still transfigure into Dr. Manhattan.

He's like a mutant...he's the next stage of human evolution like the Starchild at the end of 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Later, he elaborated: you forgot the most important piece to the puzzle - his watch-making ability was a predecessor of his innate knowledge and exceptional skill of re-assembling sh!t.

So with that innateness he was able to harness it with his particle physics skills and that's a recipe for re-emerging as Manhattan.

As a gift for being powerful enough to transcend death, mother nature gave him these awesome abilities as a newly formed 'human' in our physical world.

Theoretically, people in this universe don't just 'die'. but their spirit (quantum consciousness) is too weak to re-assemble themselves in our plane. When Dr. Manhattan's body is destroyed his soul becomes transported to the same dimensional plane as the other souls...except he has the ticket to godliness to come back whenever he feels like it.

But this is just my own theory I've conjured and it's all speculation on my part.

I hadn't really thought of it that way before. What do you guys think?

I think its a pretty valid theory. The "machine" only destroyed Jon. When he re-assembled himself, the "machine" had no party to that activity. Jon did all of that himself.

One could counter-argue that it was the manner in which the "machine" dis-assembled Jon which gave his "essence" the ability to put himself back together, in which case others could have succeeded in doing the same.

It is possible that the machine was quickly destroyed after the accident and therefore no one else could have attempted another try. Or it may be the case that no one else really wanted to try considering how harrowing and freakish the results were. I think many men, if give the chance to become a Dr. Manhattan, would say "no thanks." Yes, you have unbelievable power, but at the cost of giving up your humanity.

_________________Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music - George Carlin

this sort of thing happened in solar: man of the atom as well. philip seleski's physical body is almost completely destroyed from all the radiation he takes in, but his mind willed himself back to health with the gain of new abilities.